A year ago, I announced that I had just partnered with BBTV, in attempt to grow my YouTube channel. I explained that after one year, I would review my findings here on my blog.

Since then, I have been receiving several emails daily from other YouTubers who have been approached by BBTV, wanting to find out how it’s going with my partnership program.

Today, I release my testimonial to the public.

Fact: A year ago, I barely had over 100 subscribers. Now, I have over 900.

When you hear that, it may seem logical to believe that my 800% increase in YouTube subscribers had at least something to do with my BBTV partnership.

Instead, it had everything to do with me making an excessive amount of videos about the topics people were already searching for on YouTube.

Further into my year-long commitment with BBTV, I expressed concern to BBTV that I did not understand what they were doing on their end to help me; like promoting my videos, which is something they led me to believe over the phone.

Indirectly, BBTV ultimately acknowledged they had not done anything to actually partner with me, other than to provide services on the side which I wasn’t even aware of; as well as take $40 of my growing revenue.

Here in the following email excerpts, I have placed some of the phrases in bold font in an effort to highlight the storyline:

You replied on 11/29/2016 2:10 AM.

Hi,

The date I would choose to cancel would be December 28th, which is 30 days prior to January 27th. So in about 2 months from now, I must make the decision to remain or cancel.

While I recognize my number of subscribers has increased from 130 to 658, I am having difficulty in understanding what they increase has to do with BBTV or the agreement I signed regarding HooplaKidz.

I need your help in understanding how I’ve benefited from BBTV, considering the percentage of revenue being streamed.

Thank you for your input.

Sincerely,

Nick Shell

Ultimately, their response was to deflect that fact I signed an agreement under the assumption BBTV was directly associated with HooplaKidz, and instead, focused on their services; which were not the reason I partnered with them:

Nov 29, 2:18 PM PST

Hi Nick!

We understand that you are deciding on whether or not to continue your agreement with us. Out of curiosity, did you have a chance to make use the services that we offer our creators?

Here’s a brief list just in case:

Catalyst Chrome Extension – Our newest technology product that allows the optimization of your video metadata built right into your YouTube Video Manager. Similar services can cost up to $50 / month!

Epoxy – A platform that connects all your social media together and makes it easier to share your videos and engage your fans.

Epidemic Sound – A full library of over 28,000 Copyright free tracks, and 30,000 Copyright free sound effects that our partners can download and edit into their videos.

Showbox BETA – A web based video editor which, after a short tutorial, allows you to produce studio quality videos without any additional software or prior expertise. Check out the ShowBox Youtube Channel for examples of videos created with Showbox!

Let us know your thoughts,
Partner Experience Team

So I responded…

Hi,

I appreciate you following up with me on this. No, I was not aware of these services. However, I feel these services are not what the agreement I signed was largely based on. Instead, I specifically signed an agreement based on HooplaKidz and what I believed would help me get exposure with a larger audience. I am having difficulty in understanding how my growth since January is related to BBTV; since I absolutely have not utilized these services; nor was I aware of them. Nor am I aware of BBTV ever promoting my videos as I believed would happen.

My understanding is that on December 28th (which is 30 days prior to a year of me signing the agreement), if I send an email requesting to end the partnership, as well as to send the request to unlink on YouTube, that I will have officially done my part to leave BBTV. Is that accurate?

I want to make sure I don’t miss a technicality and automatically renew for another year.

Please know I am very grateful for you taking time to help me today. I too work in Customer Service (specifically, the retention department for my company) for a living so I don’t take you for granted as you assist me on this.

Sincerely,

Nick Shell

Just to be clear, there is good reason for me to have believed that BBTV was actually connected to HooplaKidz TV, as BBTV’s original recruitment email from January 2016 predicted:

Tue 1/26/16, 6:20 PM

You

Hi Nick! We absolutely love your channel!

We have a business opportunity that we would like to present to you from HooplaKidz Tv. We’re the highest rated kids and family entertainment company online and we would like to offer you the resources and tools to help you grow your channel.

Please let me know if you’re interested in discussing our proposal.

Thanks for your time, we look forward to hearing from you.

Talent Partnerships, BroadbandTV

Notice how what you see in print refers to “offer you the resources and tools to help you grow your channel”…

Yet the phone calls that were part of the recruitment process were focused on BBTV promoting my videos as well as having me to believe that HooplaKidz, not simply BBTV, was personally interested in me.

That was not the case. Instead, the HooplaKidz name apparently served as a storefront for BBTV to sell their partnership to me.

So in the end, BBTV probably only made around $130 off of me during the course of the year. Whereas now I’m making over $40 in monthly YouTube revenue, I had only made $40 total before partnering with them.

In other words, there wasn’t much money for them to make off of me for most of the year. Only in these last several month did my subscribership lead to them to take their 40% cut from my $40 monthly earnings.

So in the end, it cost me about $130 total for me to learn (and teach you) that BBTV had nothing to do with my subscribership increasing by 90%.

I just simply made 3 videos everyday about the topics I found people cared the most about. There is no proof that BBTV did anything to promote my channel, as I was led to believe.

Please know I am not angry or bitter. In fact, I have a feeling that my testimonial on this blog, as well as the accompanying video, could possibly eventually make up for the $130 or so that I invested in them.

In closing, I will point out BBTV is comprised of very nice people to work with. However, also note that you must proactively end the agreement before the one year mark…

Otherwise, they automatically lock you into another year. This is not something they made me aware of; I only found out due to research on my end.

That’s everything I know. That’s what my partnership with BBTV has taught me over the past year.

Now, as for you, do what you think is right for your YouTube Channel. This information is simply my personal testimonial.

Here’s the video version of this blog post: